The pond still believes in serendipity and synchronicity.
On the weekend, the local book library coughed up a book about a whole bunch of conspiracies - the Illuminati, the book of protocols and many other favourites, a full fifty - while at the same time the pond had just finished reading Anthony L. Fisher's Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and the Apocalyptic ‘Centrists’.
As it can be found outside the paywall, no need to quote at length, just the beguiling opening:
Do you know the FBI and CIA are engaging in Psyops to make the right-wing “disaffected liberal” podcaster Tim Pool look bad after news reports showed a white nationalist mass shooter was a big fan of Pool? No? You must be a blue-pilled NPC.
Have you heard the Good News? The end is nigh. Well, not from climate change or the increasing fragility of global democracy or anything like that—but from the “woke mind virus,” which was created in the labs of postmodern academia to finally exact Mao’s godless communist revolution. Don’t believe that? That’s because you’re too cowardly to believe anything but “the Cathedral’s” narrative.
These are the questions on the mind of the very important person, Elon Musk, who since taking over Twitter last year has elevated the prominence of apocalyptic conspiracy theories—including the very same ones explored in the previous paragraphs—all while posturing as a politically independent, free-thinking, non-partisan centrist who’s just into “the facts” and “civil discourse.”
After he recently compared Soros—the Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire who has openly contributed heavily to left-wing political causes and candidates around the world—to the X-Men villain Magneto, it was quickly pointed out to him that the Magneto character, like Soros the real person, is a Holocaust survivor.
Musk replied, “He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.” Now, if that’s the fact-forward rational centrist civil discourse, imagine the panic-mongering, rage-stoking fascist discourse. (Actually, you don’t have to imagine, you can find that stuff in Musk’s replies courtesy of the blue checkmark-purchasing Twitter Blue subscribers, Musk’s anti-elite free-the-people squad of freethinking political independents, a great many of whom adhere to far-right MAGA orthodoxy.)
The grandiosity of the conspiracy theories pushed by Musk and his cohort—which include hugely popular and influential Intellectual Dark Web commentators like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson—are what make them exceptional. These aren’t goofy UFO conspiracy theories. This is serious shit, the kind of stuff that would make you crazy enough to sack the Capitol, threaten the life of the vice president and speaker of the House—and think you’re the good guy...
Fisher went on to contemplate Oliver Stone and JFK, as any good conspiracy devotee would do, while the pond moved to today's offering from Killer ...as any good lizard Oz cultist would do ...
What else? Well the Major was top of the digital page ma, together with Dame Slap, but sadly he earned an immediate red card. She did too, because they, and the lizard Oz, simply can't let go of the Lehrmann matter ...
Must the pond nuke the country and the planet with the Caterist for the zillionth time?
Well it would be better than wasting time with Jennings of the fifth form or Shoebridge shovelling the usual bullshit ... so nuke away it is ...
The pond has already noted the Caterist shift from hysterical climate science denialism to hysterical concern for emissions ... provided that the only solution is to nuke the country.
In idle moments, the pond does wonder if the Menzies Resource Centre is just a front for Big Uranium ... but then the reptiles showed off their favourite new tactic ... a scare campaign featuring huge snaps ...
The pond admits it's a terrifying sight ... and a potent argument to deploy for the Caterist ... especially as the best he can offer by way of variation on the billy goat butt and the Killer "whatever" routine is a Rudyard Kipling "If", as in "If, however, this really is a climate emergency ..."
According to not so long ago Caterist, it isn't ...it really isn't ...
Oh please just one quote, just one. Yes, it's repetitive, just like the Caterist, but please, just one repetition...
Now read on, pleased and comforted by the knowledge that scepticism is the only rational response, especially when the pond assures you that the Caterist is surely the best guide to the movement of floodwaters in quarries and how to tackle climate science ...
Is there an upside? Well the pond is sure that in the next short gobbet, the Caterist will advise that the Menzies Uranium Resource Centre is devoting its annual government cash in the paw grant to the building of an SMR in Canberra, and has found the perfect site for the erection ...
Of course. How much better that site would look with an SMR rather than a pathetic piece of faux Georgian architecture in a town which was a sheep station not so long ago ...
Sorry, that was just a jolly jape amongst chums, this was how it ended ...
Just remember when reading the Caterist that scepticism is the only rational response ...
And now, even though it's overlong and even though it deals with the Voice, the pond must find room for the onion muncher, aka Dr No ...
No matter, it was time for a downsizing ...
Pearson's a bully? Is it wrong for the pond to head back to September 2009 and Pearson's Quarterly Essay?
There was a bit of correspondence attached ...
It began: Even when he is on the other side of an argument, Noel Pearson rarely seems simplistic, partisan, self-congratulatory or ahistorical. He has lived the predicament of Aboriginal people struggling to reconcile their ways with modernity, thought about it with great sophistication, and written and spoken about it with unique power. Agree or disagree, it’s hard to deny that he speaks with authority. That’s why he’s widely seen as a kind of modern-day prophet...
Yes, Dr No, OM, did indeed scribble "Over the years, Pearson has prompted quite a few conservative Australians to a change of heart", and it was even used as a blurb to help flog Pearson's Radical Hope ...
Now he's on the wrong side, and is cast into shadow in a huge reptile snap ... which the pond naturally downsized ...
Sorry, there seems to have been something wrong in that tag. Could the pond help?
"Tony Abbott was one of the worst prime ministers in Australian history, possibly the worst, and when it came to Indigenous matters, he managed to be wrong, incompetent or offensive in almost every way on every matter."
There, fixed it, and the reptiles can send the sub-editor payment to an indigenous charity of their choice ...
And with all that the pond must note the immortal Rowe of the day ... on hand in Uncle Elon's treasure trove of conspiracy theories ...
The pond did wonder what it might take to get the pond banned from travelling in Russia? Isn't calling Vald the impaler a sociopathic evil dwarf enough?
And so to conclude on a matter noted by a correspondent ...
To leave a comment, you must be a lizard Oz subscriber. No matter what matter of fact or helpful correction might be involved, there's no way that price can be right ...
And secondly there seems to be some thinking that the reptiles might be able to handle and deal with facts.
There's only one response, they can't handle the parody ...
I have to wonder if even someone as dull as the Caterist believes any of this or is he just helping create a smokescreen. John Quiggin covered all of this recently with “yet another explainer”
ReplyDeletehttps://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/why-nuclear-power-wont-work-in-australia--yet-another-explainer,17527
He also reposted this, which should provide a pretty good heads up, even for those who aren’t across the technical details
https://twitter.com/CameronGordon0/status/1659472587678957568
Seems like there’s a pattern there?
The pond is grateful you took the time and the trouble BF. These days confronted by the Caterist, the pond feels an overwhelming sense of ennui, tiredness and déjà vu.
DeletePer comment to Cameron about the cheapness of wind and solar: "This is because solar & wind are small & modular."
DeleteBut try this for size:
How solar farms took over the California desert: ‘An oasis has become a dead sea’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/21/solar-farms-energy-power-california-mojave-desert
The human race has never yet had a good idea that it hasn't been able to stuff up.
And this one too:
DeleteWind turbine failure rates are rising – has the industry gone too big, too fast?
https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-turbine-failure-rates-are-rising-has-the-industry-gone-too-big-too-fast/
After the goings on at Fox News,every article or tv report by the reptiles that I read or see,I am lead to ask,ii that their true opinion or are they just being Ruperts usefull idiots?
ReplyDeleteWonderfully flexible minds I think - it would definitely be hard to survive in Rupertworld if you had any attachment to the truth.
DeleteFor a Rupertian to develop an "attachment to the truth" they would have to firstly become aware that something called 'truth' exists and secondly to be able to recognise it when they encounter it. Things that no Rupertian has ever exhibited; their idea of 'truth' is the stuff that the likes of KillerC defecates.
DeleteLooks like Cater has now nuked coal and gas in favour of uranium and plutonium. The Cater obsession with anything that can be dug up must be due to his expertise on quarries.
ReplyDeleteMuch obliged to being enlightened by the Rhodes scholar, Abbott, pointing out that the High Court is not an elected body (given it’s judicial, not political) and that it decides issues (given that is what the job of the judiciary is).
Luckily, Abbott doesn’t deal with reality, which is why he can dismiss any democratic input with:
“... it could hardly be more at odds with what we used to tell ourselves about our country: that each and every one of us...were all first-class citizens with the same rights and responsibilities.”
Like Abbott you too could receive a full PM’s pension without having served a full term and sponge off taxpayers and use the royal “we” as only a true supporter of the ancestral, blue-bloods, “born to rule” hierarchy can do. Reality is what you tell yourself – and Peta, News Corp and all the Coalition Lobbyists will tell you what reality is.
“Mr speaker, this is a fuel rod, Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared.”
DeleteWhich kind of leads to the question of which pundit would want to host a facility? If Covid provides a guideline I would suggest no one from the Murdoctopus. At the same time they were railing against public health measures they had strict controls in place within the company. Rupert became a virtual hermit for fear he would catch the plague.
Creighton’s column is essentially a week-old rewarming of the last week’s blather inside the MAGA media bubble.
ReplyDeleteHis diatribe overlooks the fundamental point that in the run up to the 2016 election, only one candidate was publicly known to be under FBI investigation - Hillary Clinton. Comey publicly announced the re-opening of the investigation into her use of a private email server 10 days before the election. How could an FBI investigation ‘smear’ Trump as a ‘candidate’ when Crossfire Hurricane only became public after he was elected President?
Creighton obfuscates this timeline, as well as the findings of the Mueller report.
It detailed Russia’s efforts to assist the Trump campaign, and that senior members of the Trump campaign such as Paul Manafort had Russian contacts which they lied about. The bi-partisan Senate investigation came to the same conclusion. Nothing in Durham’s report changes these fundamental conclusions, or the numerous convictions resulting from the Mueller investigation.
Mueller did not find ‘no evidence of collusion’. The question of collusion was not part of his brief - it was a criminal investigation which did not yield clear evidence of criminal conspiracy. And a big factor in that outcome was the mob-like obstruction from Trump and henchmen like Manafort and Roger Stone, who refused to flip on Trump, and were rewarded with pardons.
It's truly just basically a simple matter, isn't it: the truth is whatever I tell you it is. But as I've said before, you wouldn't want to "collude" with a bunch of incapables such as the Trump team, would you. They'd only stuff you up. But either way, the Russkis wanted Trump elected and did whatever they could to get that to happen, with or without actual Trumpian input and assistance.
DeleteBut hey, it's an easy life for KillerC: pick up what Fox News says and rebroadcast it for all of Roopie's Australian believers - really good wages for an otherwise useless stenographer.
Now this is just classic reptile: from Onion Muncher Abbott: "Because voice [still no V] supporters are worried the referendum might fail ..." Are "they" ? Ok name a half dozen of them who have publicly shared their "worry" "they're now arguing among them selves..." Are they ? Who exactly is arguing ? Leeser, perhaps ? Pearson and 'bedwetter' Gooda perhaps ? Yeah, cast of thousands, hey ? "whether to water down their proposed change to our system of government."
ReplyDeleteBut hey, Muncher again: "especially a voice based on ancestry..." Based on "ancestry" and not on "race". Muncher ? That's not the way the reptile script has been written. Besides, my citizenship (once we'd created one) was entirely based upon my ancestry, and the Aboriginals were denied everything (and murdered and massacred etc) based on their ancestry, weren't they.
And here we go: the reptile lies are coming: "giving the Indigenous voice a constitutional right to make representations to everyone on everything...". Now, can somebody explain to me just exactly what I am verboten from making a political representation about ? All that the Indigenous Voice is about is ensuring that at least the Indigenes are actually listened to occasionally and that their right to that can't be sent into cancel country at the whim of some wingnut politicians - eg like somebody who thought it was absolutely essential to award an Australian knighthood to Prince Phillip - like all their past "voices" have been.
Onwards: "But a voice whose powers are ultimately decided by the unelected High Court..." Wau, and of course nothing like that ever happens in any other case, does it. So, can somebody tell me why any of us are obliged to obey this frightfully unelected High Court on any matter at all ? They're "unelected" for goodness sake.
Alright, I know it's a useless task arguing with Abbott, but...judges are elected, by the Executive. If they were to be elected by "the people" (and on this see Votes for children! Why we should lower the voting age to six ) what would they run on? "I have been a member of The Melbourne Club since the age of nine, and I will deliver judgments according to my upbringing!"
ReplyDeleteA few years back, part of the lemniscate with Limited News included 'Catallaxy'. Contributors there tended to send words to 'Quad Rant', and even the Speccie'. Those words often targeted climate change, in which they did not believe, but, rather than frame their opposition in terms of analysing agreed data sets, they tended to what clearly they believed was the much loftier, intellectually superior, line that the case for human influence on climate change was simply destroyed every time by applying Karl Popper's concept of 'falsifiability'. Actually - applying what they understood it to be. I was never convinced that they had fully grasped what Popper was getting at. Some confused themselves by adding needless complication to what is a simple proposition.
ReplyDeleteBe that as it may - one person who did understand what Popper was getting at, was his student - George Soros. Understood it so well, that he could make great amounts of money by looking for the 'falsifiability' in how financial markets behaved. (Remember - Popper developed much of his thinking from study of psychology, not so much science per.se.)
The response to Soros, from much of the financial establishment, was to claim that his success came from some kind of devious conspiracy, of a kind that would have required unbelievable co-ordination of actors, to undermine the supposed 'rules' of international finance. Well, they could hardly admit that Soros had shown so many of them that they had not the faintest idea of what they were doing, most of the time - and still don't.
But it does amuse me that Soros is excoriated, simply for discovering a fundamental aspect of human behaviour with large amounts of money, that 'financiers' claim to manage and grow, on behalf of investors - but manifestly fail to do. Oh, and that scientists who claim to be public intellectuals have nothing like Soros' understanding of Karl Popper.
Only the one, unique Soros ? Or is he but 'first among many' ?
DeleteAnd what about Buffett and Munger ?
But "they had not the faintest idea of what they were doing" ? Well, that's pretty much par for the course in matters that involve human 'understanding' and activity - as, for instance, the returns from many superannuation funds show consistently.